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Malcolm Hargrove
Malcom Hargrove serves as the Oversight Sub-Committee Chairman of the UNSC as well as the CEO of Charon Industries, who exchanges messages with the Director of Project Freelancer throughout each chapter of Reconstruction. The Chairman also serves a supporting character in the Recollections, a minor character in Season 10, and the main antagonist of the Chorus Trilogy, under the alias Control. Role in Plot Messaging the Director During Oversight, Malcom makes his first correspondence with Dr. Leonard Church as a representative of the newly formed UNSC Oversight Sub-Committee, stating that he looked forward to a long, mutually beneficial relationship between the two departments. At this point, Malcom served as the assistant to the chairperson of the sub-committee. However, after the Director demanded more bases for his "tests", Malcom suspected that he was hiding something. At some point, Malcom Hargrove became the Chairman of the Oversight Sub-Committee and the CEO of Charon Industries. Years later, when the Meta began to go on his rampage, the Chairman began to inspect Project Freelancer. During the transmissions with the Director, the two argue fiercely and he discovers the Director's crimes in the past, including torturing the Alpha A.I. During the end of Reconstruction, he becomes fed up by what he found in the files about the Director and decided to place him under arrest. He questions the Director's intelligence with the A.I.s by asking about the safety protocols. However, the Director would send him one last message on why he committed the crimes and hoped he would understand. Negotiation with the Reds and Blues The Chairman reappears as the commanding officer of the UNSC Maximum Security Detention Facility where Agent Washington is being held in the episode My House, From Here. He sends Washington on a mission, with the Meta, to locate and capture Epsilon, in exchange for his freedom. For their pursuit, the Chairman provided the two ex-Freelancers with left-over enhancements from Project Freelancer. However the Meta was killed by the Blood Gulch Crew and, unbeknownst to the Chairman, Wash escaped with the Blue Team at the end of Revelation, in which the Chairman believed him to be dead. By the events of Season 10, the Reds and Blues become wanted criminals by the UNSC, due to hiding Wash as well as their attempts to rescue Epsilon. However, after the group confront the Director at the Freelancer Offsite Storage Facility, the Blood Gulch Crew receive a full pardon from Malcom Hargrove for their actions of bringing Project Freelancer to justice as well as stopping several major threats. At the ceremony, the Chairman meets the group for the first time. Control Later on, the Chairman uses a group of Space Pirates to eradicate the people of Chorus, a planet undergoing a civil war. Acting as Control, Locus reports to him throughout Season 11 and Season 12. It's then revealed in Lost But Not Forgotten that Control shows an interest in a crate on board the UNSC Crashed Ship and has Locus retrieve it. However, during this time, Carolina somehow infiltrated Control and a mercenary compound, obtaining vital information before impersonating them. In Cloak and Dagger, it's revealed that Felix works for Control as well, and that Control is someone who wants to eradicate the planet's inhabitants by escalating the Chorus Civil War. When the Blood Gulch Crew find out about the plan and flee with Carolina, Control has Felix and Locus lie about their deaths to their respective armies in order to push them towards a final confrontation. However, the Blood Gulch Crew ultimately prevent the two Chorus armies from killing each other by revealing the Space Pirates' involvement in the war. When Control scorns Locus and Felix for their failure and tells them to go to war with Chorus, the Blood Gulch Crew contact him and reveal they know the Chairman's true identity. After they accept his declaration of war, the Chairman is informed by a recovered F.I.L.S.S. about the crate Locus previously sent, containing the Meta's helmet. Personality Malcom Hargrove, at first, seems to be a reasonable and polite man of the UNSC, acting calm during many of his messages and holds the law to a high level by seeking justice for the crimes the Director commits. However, the Director has suggested that the Chairman had risen into political power by tearing others down, meaning he is not what he appears to be. The Chairman is also shown to be negotiable as he makes deals best suited for his personal interests, such as when he allowed Washington and the Meta to capture Epsilon for him in return for their freedom. In addition, the Chairman has a short temper, such as when the Director insults him and UNSC law. The Chairman also possesses a dark sense of humor, as he jokingly states that the Director will be remembered in history for disobeying UNSC law or when he reads Wash's criminal record and acknowledges his personal favorite of Wash's crime. Later developments in the series show his apparently lawful and sanctimonious image to be something of a sham. His actions reveal him to be an extremely unethical and self-serving individual, plotting to have an entire planet of colonists killed because they stood in the way of a profit seeking endeavor and coldly ordering the deaths of the Reds and Blues should they become an inconvenience. The sincerity of his moral condemnation of the Director is seriously questionable, and he is guilty of many of the same things, including the misappropriation of UNSC property. His actions and apparent motivations seem to validate the Director's impression of him as power-seeking, and arguably paint him as far worse an individual than the Director ever was, given his requirement for collateral damage rather than it being an unfortunate consequence of his orders, and his ultimate goals being purely financially based rather than the Director's ostensibly good aim of resurrecting a loved one as well as win the war. Themes Identity While acting as Control, the Chairman has gone through great lengths to hide his identity, such as using a distorted voice in order to communicate with others, including its own mercenaries; avoids any visual interaction at all costs, as he doesn't use a camera, unlike the mercenaries, while speaking to others; and only speaks with Locus and Felix and the two then relay the orders to the other Space Pirates, according to Zachary Miller. The "normal" Space Pirates only hear from Control when, as Miller put it in Accentuate the Interrogative, "things are getting dicey." Originally, evidence suggested Carolina or the Federal Army of Chorus was Control, but they've ultimately proved to be red herrings. While Control leaves little evidence of his identity, he has left some hints. In Long Time No See, it's revealed that Control was associated with Project Freelancer, as Control spoke of the Freelancer armor enhancements as "my property". Because Control specifically knew about the mysterious crate on the UNSC ship, as well as the fact that it contained other Freelancer equipment, he displayed a connection to the UNSC. Control was also aware that the Blood Gulch Crew were mostly mediocre soldiers, revealing that Control personally knew the group to some degree and their adventures. Because he hired all the Space Pirates as well as the fact he mass produced more advanced armor enhancements and weaponry, Control was shown to be someone with immense wealth and resources. Eventually, the final clue to Control's true identity was the fact all the equipment on the UNSC Crashed Ship belonged to Charon Industries. When Epsilon notes this from the ship's manifest and that the corporation became "buddies" with the military due to Malcom Hargrove's influence in both, he realized that the Chairman was Control. Skills and Abilities Manipulation Using his intellect and resources, it is shown that the Chairman is a great leader - and more specifically - an excellent manipulator, fooling many to further his goals. For example, when Washington revealed he knew about Epsilon not being in his possession, the Chairman cleverly used Wash's desire for freedom to have the latter to go retrieve the A.I. in Recreation, even though it's implied he was lying later on. During the Chorus Trilogy, using the identity "Control", the Chairman was revealed to have been orchestrating the Civil War on Chorus by commanding the Space Pirates to manipulate the planet's two armies, the Federal Army of Chorus and the New Republic, making sure it continued to the point where the inhabitants were eradicated. The Chairman has also used his influence in both the UNSC and Charon Industries to obtain vital equipment, such as the Meta's helmet in You Know Who We Are. Even before these events, the Director implied that Hargrove manipulated others to obtain his high position as both CEO of Charon Industries and Chairman of the UNSC Oversight Subcommittee. Trivia *The Chairman's face is first revealed in You Know Who We Are, six seasons after he was first introduced. Also, his face resembles his voice actor, Jack Lee. *In Called Up, the Chairman is shown to have white hair, but in You Know Who We Are, he's shown to be bald. *Like Wyoming, the Chairman speaks in a somewhat English accent. *The Chairman's name wasn't revealed until the episode Oversight. *The Chairman is the second of four British characters to appear in the series, the others being Wyoming, Jones, and General Donald Doyle respectively. *The Chairman claims that much can come from the merger of business and politics, this would mean he is a fascist or at least is studied in fascist ideology. * The Chairman could be considered as one of the main antagonists of the entire series, having been associated with many conflicts of three major story arcs: being the one who sent Washington and Meta after Epsilon in Revelation, acting as a benefactor to the Insurrection during the Project Freelancer Saga, and later being directly tied to the space pirates in the Chorus Trilogy. References Category:Characters Category:UNSC Category:Antagonists Category:Charon Industries